


Tio Amo, Caro Mio

by To_Shiki



Category: Assassin's Creed, Assassin's Creed II - Fandom
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-19
Updated: 2013-05-19
Packaged: 2017-12-12 07:10:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,860
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/808741
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/To_Shiki/pseuds/To_Shiki
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Based off of a prompt on the AC kink meme.  Historically Leo's 10 years older than Ezio and dies in his early 60's.  Anon wanted to cry.  I succeeded.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Tio Amo, Caro Mio

**Author's Note:**

> I hope the tiny bit of Italian that's in this is correct. The internet's only so good.

“Would you look at that!  I leave you alone for a year or two and some strange man takes over!”

Leonardo da Vinci, somewhat used to surprise visits, jerked the paintbrush away from the canvas and quickly draped a cloth over the piece of work.  The voice thankfully came from the stairway in front of him so that his visitor couldn’t see what he was working on.

“What strange man are you talking about?” Leonardo laughed as he watched his lover descend the stairs.  “Did someone sneak in while you weren’t guarding me?”

“I think so.  For whom else could this be before me?”  Retired assassin Ezio Auditore placed both hands upon the shoulders of the older man.  “I could have sworn that the man I left in Milan didn’t have nearly as many grey hairs as you, sir.  And he had a better trimmed beard.”  Mischievous eyes racked up and down the artist’s body taking in the grey –nearly white- long hair and beard, the tired blue eyes with wrinkles around the edges, and slightly tattered tunic and pants.  All a far cry from the man he first remembered meeting so long ago.

Leonardo glared playfully back.  He raised his paintbrush and smeared white paint down the length of Ezio’s nose.  “These grey hairs are all your fault, you know.  All those years jumping out at him from haystacks or creeping in while I’m working on-“

“Speaking of,” Ezio turned to face the covered canvas as he attempted to wipe off the paint.  “In your last letter it said that you were in too much pain, your hands and back, that you could barely get out of bed.”  Eyes returned to the smiling artist.  “What has this fancy king you’ve been living under giving you?”

“Nothing that I don’t ask for,” Leonardo teased.  “Don’t look!  It’s not finished yet!”  The paintbrush was once again used this time to swat at the hand tugging at the cloth covering.  The white paint splattered onto the back of his hand and left flecks along the cloth.

“But you always let me see.  Even the ones that were never finished!”  Ezio tried his best, but his puppy eyes failed him this night.

“No.  Wait until it’s finished.”  Giving up his weapon of choice he took an arm and led the two of them back towards the stairs.  “Come up and lie with me.  Tell me of what you’ve been up to.”  His free hand patted the arm he held.  “I’ve missed you terribly, Caro mio.”  His smiled did nothing to hide the pain etched on his face from having to climb up twenty stairs too many to his bedroom.

“Do you have any more?”  At the questioning glance he clarified, “of what the king gave you for the pain.”

A short shake of the head was his answer.  “I’ve taken about all that I can handle for the day.  Don’t worry about it.”  Leonardo settled himself on one of the many chairs so that he could remove his boots.  When Ezio kneeled down to take over he didn’t protest.  Instead he ran gnarled fingers through the long dark brown hair of his lover.  “I see that I’m not the only one with grey hair,” he observed aloud, twirling a strand mixed with several grey.

Ezio hummed in agreement and set both boots aside.  He laid his cheek on his lover’s knee and just _looked_ at him.  Every time he blinked there was a split second where grey was replaced with sandy blond and the wrinkles weren’t so pronounced.  Without thinking about it he let his eyes fall closed as fingers faintly deformed by arthritis card through his hair, gently massaging his scalp.

“Tell me what you’ve been up to, caro mio,” was whispered.  “I’ve only had the king and his servants for company these past couple years.  I can barely go outside.  You saw how difficult stairs are for me now.”

“Alright.”  Ezio settled himself on the floor, head still on Leonardo’s knee, one hand on the floor to support his weight and the other on Leonardo’s thigh. 

For nearly half the night he spoke of all the court appearances he made.  They laughed together as he told of all the ladies trying to get him to stay and the excuses he pulled.  Apologies for barely coming to visit were brushed off as unnecessary.  All the while Leonardo ran his hands through Ezio’s hair while his lover stroked his thigh unconsciously.

It wasn’t until Leonardo’s head began to droop did Ezio realize how late it truly was.  It was slowly starting to sink in that their nights of staying up until dawn talking were growing to a close.  With a grace belying his age he rose from the floor, assisting his sleepy lover to his feet and to the bed.  No words passed between them as he helped him change into his nightgown.  Although a chuckle was heard when Ezio began shedding his own clothing, hunting for a spare set of clothes to sleep in while half naked.

“You’re going to be the death of me if you continue like that, Ezio.”  Blue eyes ran over the well defined back presented to him from across the room.  Even in his fifties the former assassin was still a force to be reckoned with.  Scars, stretched over time and muscle, were scattered over back and sides.  When he turned to face him the well defined abs that he could still feel under his fingers after so many years were still there.

Ezio frowned at the prone man.  “Don’t say things like that, Leo.”  He tried his hardest to make it a jest, but both men could hear the plea clearly in his voice.  He crossed the room in three long strides and lay on his side facing his artist.  “You and I…we still have several years ahead of us.”  Ezio ran one hand through Leonardo’s beard as the other rested behind his head.  “I didn’t tell you earlier, but I am no longer needed in court.  I was planning to move in with you.  If you don’t mind?”

“Of course I don’t mind.”  Leonardo placed his hand over Ezio’s and told him, “But if you’re thinking of making love to me I have to remind you that it’ll take much longer than it used to.  I am quite old now, you know.”  The twinkle in his eye counteracted his serious tone.

“I think I can manage.  We have plenty of time.”  Ezio squeezed the fingers holding his hand.  “Plenty of time.”  With a simple loving kiss he bid his lover goodnight and blew out the candle on the bed stand.  As he settled against the other man he inhaled deeply, taking in the lingering scent of smoke from the candle, the combined aroma of paint fumes, metal workings, and soap that just screamed _Leonardo_.   The sensation of this one body in particular against his own was something he had missed fiercely while away.  He shifted his position so that his head rested over Leonardo’s heart.

Weary from his travels and long conversation he was quickly lulled asleep by the heartbeat racing under his ear.

As he slept, he didn’t notice the change in position.  He also didn’t notice when his artist rose from the bed, hand held to his chest and breaths leaving him in harsh gasps.  So many years of not being the hunter and the hunted caused him to lower his guard.  So many years of having an assassin as first a friend then a lover caused Leonardo to learn how to walk silently across wooden floorboards and down murderous stairs.

Ezio didn’t hear the cloth being pulled from the canvas down in the workshop.  Nor did he hear the faint _swish_ as paint was once again applied to the fabric.  A loud _creak_ from one of the chairs caused his hand to twitch, triggering a phantom bracer to release a blade long since rusted.

It wasn’t until sunlight jabbed him in the eyes that he awoke, feeling very refreshed.  He reached out a hand to find his lover.  When he encountered nothing his eyes snapped open.  Warm sunshine and cold bed sheets greeted him good morning.

“Leo?”  He quickly jumped out of bed and nearly stumbled down the stairs in his haste to find his missing lover.  It wasn’t until he saw Leonardo resting in a chair next to his easel that he started breathing again.  _Fell asleep down here again, huh?_   It had taken several nights of self-doubt, waking to an empty bed, to realize that an artist’s mind does not shut down and if it demands a painting or sketch to be done it will be done.

Slowing his pace he noticed that the painting his lover had been working on the evening before was now bared for all to see.  Laying a hand on his lover’s shoulder he took a moment to gaze at it before waking his artist.  What he saw took his breath away.

Spread out on a medium sized canvas was the two of them.  It had to of been from just before either of them had worked up the courage to confess their love to the other.  White paint streaked with reds and browns lay slumped over a worktable while dark yellow and blue streaked with white and red was hunched over scattered pieces of metal and leather.  Laughing blue eyes were turned lovingly towards the sleeping assassin as hands worked.

A smile stretched across Ezio’s face as he remember several such times where he’d come to visit his friend with a weapon needing to be fixed or a code to be cracked only to fall fast asleep in the one place he felt safest.

Resting on the bottom of the easel a white piece of fluff stuck out.  Curious, he strode over and gently picked it item away from the painting.  Holding it in both hands revealed it as an eagle’s feather.  With a growing sense of dread, Ezio flipped it over as he turned back to his lover.

His lover who hadn’t stirred at his loud call or his feet hitting the wooden stairs or his hand landing on his shoulder.

Ezio, the one who’d looked Death straight in the eyes and didn’t even flinch, fell to his knees.  The blue lips and lack of movement told him all that he needed to know.  He crawled forward, feather still held in one hand.  Trembling fingers caressed lips frozen in a smile before falling limply to lie across Leonardo’s lap.  He rested his head against his dead lover’s knee in a weak parody of last night.  Teary eyes fell upon the hand on the armrest, only blooded finger pointing down to the fine tipped paintbrush lying on the floor.

His eyes followed the finger down to the brush and over to the feather still in his possession.  At the sight of blood curled and twisted over it, he brought it closer.

He sat there for nearly an hour, reading and rereading what was painted on with his lover’s blood.

_Tio amo, caro mio_

 

 


End file.
